y.

"I suppose," he told Clarendon anon, "I must swallow this black draught
to get the jam that goes with it."

The Chancellor's grave eyes considered him almost sternly what time he
coldly recited the advantages of this marriage. If he did riot presume
to rebuke the ribaldry of his master, neither would he condescend to
smile at it. He was too honest ever to be a sycophant.

Catherine was immediately attended--in the words of Grammont--by six
frights who called themselves maids-of-honour, and a governess who was
a monster. With this retinue she repaired to Hampton Court, where
the honeymoon was spent, and where for a brief season the poor
woman--entirely enamoured of the graceful, long-legged rake she had
married--lived in a fool's paradise.

Disillusion was to follow soon enough. She might be, by he grace of
her dowry, Queen of England, but she was soon to discover that to King
Charles she was no more than a wife de jure. With wives de facto Charles
would people his seraglio as fancy moved him; and the present wife
defacto, the mistress of his heart, the first lady of his harem, was
that beautiful termagant, Barbara Villiers, wife of the accommodating
Roger Palmer, Earl of Castle-maine.

There was no lack--there never is in such cases--of those who out of
concern and love for the happily deluded wife lifted the veil for her,
and made her aware of the facts of his Majesty's association with my
Lady Castle-maine--an association dating back to the time when he was
still a homeless wanderer. The knowledge would appear to have troubled
the poor soul profoundly; but the climax of her distress was reached
when, on her coming to Whitehall, she found at the head of the list of
ladies-in-waiting assigned to her the name of my Lady Castlemaine. The
forlorn little woman's pride rose up before this outrage. She struck out
that offending name, and gave orders that the favourite was not to be
admitted to her presence.

But she reckoned without Charles. For all his urbane, good-tempered,
debonair ways, there was an ugly cynical streak in his nature,
manifested now in the manner in which he dealt with this situation.
Himself he led his boldly handsome favourite by the hand into his wife's
presence, before the whole Court assembled, and himself presented her
to Catherine, what time that Court, dissolute and profligate as it was,
looked on in amazement at so outrageous a slight to the dignity of a
queen.

What followed may well